Georgetown Athletics Photo, Former South Troy Dodger and Guilderland native Steve Anderson of Georgetown follows the flight of his home run during a recent game against Xavier at Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda, Md.

The Guilderland native and South Troy Dodgers alum, now in his senior season playing first base at Georgetown, was playing for the Newport Gulls in the New England College Baseball League the summer after his sophomore season with the Hoyas when a single community outreach event with the team changed Anderson’s entire outlook on the impact that his sport could have on the world around him.

The Gulls had partnered up with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a volunteer-driven charity that raises money in support of finding a cure for childhood cancer and is best known for its head-shaving events that take place all over the country.

For Anderson, whose mother passed away from cancer when he was just eight years old, the event and the foundation hit home in a way he never expected and even after he returned his Gulls uniform for Georgetown grey, the memory of that singular community outreach program, which raised over $15,000, never truly left him.

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Fast forward this past fall; Anderson, in his final season with the Hoyas, had just been elected one of three team captains and the senior standout took that responsibility to heart. He was going to be a leader for this team, on and off the field and, in his final chance to do so, Anderson was going to leave some sort of legacy for the game that had already given him so much.

Over the next few weeks, Anderson racked his brain for possible fundraising and community ideas for the Hoyas, opportunities for the team to give back to the Washington D.C. community.

That was when it hit him; St. Baldrick’s.

Anderson never forgot the impact of that one event over the summer two years ago and this year, his senior year, he was going to do whatever he could to repeat.

“Ultimately I decided to bring St. Baldrick’s to our team this spring,” Anderson said. “It was a great event that we could do together and more than that, when I was in Newport, I saw that it really brought the team together and kind of made everyone feel a bit closer to each other. I thought we could bring that Georgetown and really get the team behind something. This is bigger than baseball and I was hoping this could carry over to the field as well.”

Anderson began planning the event in February, calling friends and family to begin fundraising and doling out responsibilities to everyone on the Georgetown baseball team.

In between early-season practices, road games and watching film, Anderson and his teammates covered all their metaphorical bases for setting up the St. Baldrick’s event, with players assigned to tasks ranging from talking to the media to barber coordination.

“It was a pretty exhausting process for me,” Anderson said. “It was obviously a lot of fun and I enjoyed every minute of it but it was a lot to kind of take on. Our event was a little different than a lot of other St. Baldrick events in that ours was really player-driven. All the thanks really goes to the entire team because without everyone jumping into specific roles, it couldn’t have been as excellent as it was.”

Of course, throughout the entire planning process, the collective beards and overall hair length of the Georgetown baseball team continued to grow.

Not a single razor was touched, no shaving cream was even bought, until the final event on April 5.

Sitting in chairs along the baseline, the entire Georgetown team shaved their heads and their beards, surrounded by members of the community and children affected by cancer. By the time the final piece of hair had fallen to the ground, Anderson and the Hoyas had raised over $46,000, making them the second-highest fundraising collegiate baseball team in the 14-year history of the event.

It’s a number Anderson is still trying to wrap his head around.

“It still hasn’t really sunk in for me,” he said. “ I saw how it went at Newport’ and it was just like if we could get to $20,000 that would be awesome. And to see where we ended up, I can’t even describe it.”

Anderson has been having a solid season on the field as well for the Hoyas this spring as well. He was named Big East Player of the Week on March 31 and is batting .325 as the only player to start every game.

But while the senior is enjoying his final season, nothing has compared to the feeling when he saw what the St. Baldrick’s event meant to the kids in the D.C. community. This year wasn’t just about baseball for Anderson.

This year was about what baseball can do.

“Here we are, a baseball team in college and we have as many opportunities as we do every day and it’s kind of easy to lose sight with that,” Anderson said. “That’s where it really humbled me a lot, to see these kids come out and how happy they were after everything they’ve been through. It’s pretty incredible.”